This invention relates to pallets, and more particularly to pallets constituted of one or more metal sections, as well as to methods of making such pallets. In an important specific sense, the invention is directed to pallets made of one or more sections formed from hollow tubular metal cores on which coils of metal strip or other sheet or strip material have been wound.
Pallets are portable platforms on which packages or other goods, loose or bundled material such as metal scrap, and the like may be piled for handling, storage or local transport e.g. within a manufacturing plant or warehouse and/or for shipment between remote points. They are commonly arranged to be picked up and moved by forklift trucks.
Conventional pallets for use in moving bulky articles are made of wood. Thus, they are relatively heavy, adding a freight cost in the case of long-distance transport. Recipients of goods shipped on wooden pallets are burdened with the inconvenience of either returning them to the sender or disposing of them. Wooden pallets have a limited lifetime before they must be repaired, and they have little value when they are no longer serviceable.
Plastic pallets are more durable than wooden pallets, hence capable of greater re-use, but are heavy and need to be returned to the shipper in order to be cost effective. This again adds to freight costs. Plastic pallets, like wooden pallets, have little value at the end of their useful lifetimes, and present difficulties of disposal.
Cylindrical corrugated hollow metal tubes are widely used as cores for coils of strip or sheet material such as aluminum strip from which cans are made (the term “aluminum” herein refers to aluminum metal and aluminum-based alloys) as well as for coils of other long films or strips of thin plastic, paper or metal. Such tubes may be made by helically winding a longitudinally corrugated aluminum strip with adjacent turns partially overlapping, for example as described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,040,569, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by this reference. In the produced tube, the corrugations run circumferentially, i.e. transversely, and serve to strengthen the tube wall.
Recipients of coils of strip having cores as just described often have no use for the cores as such because they use but do not ship coilable strip. Consequently, at the present time, the cores are simply scrapped by the recipients of the coils. While they have value as scrap metal, their formed structure is not utilized once they have served as coil cores.